In Part One of this series, we discussed how both setting team goals and missions and getting organized are recipes for success in business.

Step Three: Write the Situation Analysis

The situation analysis gives you facts needed for planning. It answers basic questions including:

Who are your prospective buyers and sellers? Where are they? (Local, other states, a certain neighborhood or development?) What do they want and need? What can your team give them that they cannot find elsewhere?

Where is your team (or individual realty agent operation) now and where do you want it to be X years from now? Why? What problems do you need to solve to get there? Is what you are doing now going to get you there?

Who do you compete with? Are they targeting the same audiences that you are? How would you define THEIR goals and strategies, strengths, weaknesses, service, marketing approach?

The best way to gather this data is to assign team members each a certain number of tasks and have them do local research in that area. With a team, you may first have to sell them on the value of even doing a marketing plan, before they will wholeheartedly participate. Some tasks might include collecting documented data on your competitors, such as their annual sales, target audiences or neighborhoods (farmed areas), team members’ strengths, weaknesses, community image, traffic at location, etc.

Put all this in tabbed files or in PC folders. But organize it well. The new free Google Desktop software for finding everything on your computer is an asset here. This data will form much of the foundation for your objectives.

Step Four: Set Marketing Objectives

After you finish defining the corporate goals and have made a situation analysis, you can lay out your marketing objectives.

Marketing objectives actually provide targets that help you direct your marketing strategies. Marketing objectives are time-phased sub-goals for reaching your overall team goals. They answer questions like "what profile do you want for your team next year?" And "what criteria will best get you there?"

The validity of a marketing objective is tested by asking yourself whether it will serve the best interests of the team (or even the brokerage) as a whole. Thus, marketing objectives must fit with each person on the team, or each department (buyers agents, listing agents, commercial property agents, 1031ers, commercial agents, etc). This is accomplished by having each department or realty agent submit and review all marketing objectives before they become concrete.

All objectives need to fit within the framework of the situation analysis and be compatible with each other and with related strategies. They should be measurable, attainable, acceptable by all the team members or departments, results-oriented, consistent with one another, flexible (very important ... iron clad rules hinder more than help ... objectives can change.) Marketing objectives should also be challenging or why have them?

Examples of Objectives:

Gain 30 percent top-of-head name awareness (as researched in telephone polls) of each team member’s name in the areas they farm before December 31.

Increase our share of sellers in the Willow Glen housing tract by 25 percent before June 30.

Have our website show up within the top three positions for "San Clemente 1031" on Google.com by Sept. 24th.

Increase overall dollar sales volume on homes costing between $600,000 and $1 million by $12 million by the end of this year.

Hire two new buyers agents as soon as our sales volume hits $35 million this year.